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Dominate Your Online MarketMon, 24 Oct 2016 02:08:26 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.5Find and Own Your Company’s White Space through Personas and Segmentationhttp://pwim.com/find-and-own-your-companys-white-space-through-personas-and-segmentation/
http://pwim.com/find-and-own-your-companys-white-space-through-personas-and-segmentation/#respondWed, 26 Aug 2015 21:04:19 +0000http://www.pwim.com/?p=3068What is white space? A brand’s white space refers to the room in a competitive market that the brand has to stand out. For example, a chemical company may recognize a desire among consumers for eco-friendly products. They create a new brand of eco-friendly chemicals that allow them to stand out in that white space. […]

A brand’s white space refers to the room in a competitive market that the brand has to stand out. For example, a chemical company may recognize a desire among consumers for eco-friendly products. They create a new brand of eco-friendly chemicals that allow them to stand out in that white space. The white space also refers to your unique value proposition in comparison to your competitors. Generally, the more unique and relevant your proposition is to consumers, the better you will seem to prospective customers. User experience is huge and proposing relevant solutions that will help your customers overcome their challenges and achieve their goals is key.

How do I find my white space?

Research

White Space is found by researching your current customer base, or who your ideal customer is, and putting together a generalized view of who they are, what they are looking for, and what problems they have that you can solve. A few ways to research include market research, surveys, focus groups, and other cheaper alternatives such as researching what resonates with your consumers through social media.

Personas

According to HubSpot, buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of a company’s or a brand’s ideal buyer or current buyers. These data are gathered from things like market research and existing customer data and put into a character archetype representing an average type of buyer. When constructing a buyer persona, a lot of information is needed as insights may be gained from unexpected information. Data such as gender, ethnicity, national origin, location, income, residence type, what devices they use, their motivations, their problems, education, and many other preferences and demographic information may prove invaluable depending on what type of product you offer. For example, without knowing what social networks your buyers frequent, or their media preferences, you cannot craft an effective media plan. Similarly, without knowing the buyer’s motivations or problems, advertisements and posts will not be as effective as they could be decreasing ROI. Basically, personas will help guide product development, marketing, and alignment of your organization towards what your ideal consumer wants.

Pro tip: 3-5 personas is what is usually recommended to cover your customer base.

Negative Personas

Similar to negative keywords, negative personas are just like regular personas except the data are gathered from who you do not want to be your customer. This could be customers that return a negative ROI, have a negative lifetime value, or troll and generally negatively impact the perception of your products. For example, if you sell a boutique, high-end product, don’t target people who buy based only on the cheapest price. They may shop for products in your category, but they’re technically not your customers. Negative personas can ultimately help decrease the new customer acquisition cost and the cost per lead by helping to reduce bad leads.

Use of Personas

Use personas to guide interactions with your consumers. Some buyers may respond to one call to action more than another, and you know this from the persona you developed from your customer data. Perhaps you even have multiple personas within your customer base. Instead of sending out 1 type of email for things like shopping cart reminders, promotions, or special offers, personas allow you to determine what offers work best for different personas and tailor your communication to fit each type. Send different content within emails or communications to each persona, or create scripts based on personas to maximize the chance of engagement and conversion, and see what works with each.

What you can do with personas and data is really up to your imagination. For instance, you may be running an AdWords campaign and notice that on the weekends you get more clicks from men over the age of 30, but during the week your main leads are women in their 20s. Personas can help you craft ads that speak to your customers’ unique challenges by allowing you to better understand them.

Creating Buyer Personas

You may be already gathering customer information that could help you create buyer personas.

1. Research

Interviewing customers, market research, and cautious generalizations will help with an initial assessment of what indicators separate your customers into different personas.

2. Your data

Going through your own customer and lead databases searching for similarities and correlations between your customers may also help you reveal what segments your buyer groups. Look into your analytics data and see what brought each consumer to your site. Perhaps the majority of men searched for men’s belts, while women tended to search for leggings. Understanding what your customer is searching for can help you determine what challenges they have and how you can best market yourself to help them complete your goals.

3. Their data

Once you have a good idea of the similarities among your customers that allow you to segment them, carefully crafting online forms to capture relevant data will help you to better create marketing messages, unique content, and calls to action for your leads. Important data might include customer life cycle stage, income, goals, and challenges.

4. Experimentation

Trial and error is inevitable with creating personas. You may expect that income separates your buyer personas, but find out later that different goals and challenges were more effective segmentation tools. It’s most important to try different tools and see what works. Use all of the data you have about your current and future customers to your advantage.

Common Pitfalls

Many of the problems marketers run into when segmenting consumers based on personas is in the implementation and followthrough.

Not being proactive

A lot of marketers sadly take the old “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” adage. Personas and the systems used to implement and support them require constant tweaking and fine-tuning to stay relevant.

Not following through

Halfway implementing a system is another common problem marketers run into. Implementing a consumer segmentation marketing plan based on personas is a massive undertaking and a lot of work. But, it will pay off if you stick with it.

Thinking you don’t need personas anymore

Similar to how some people start taking medicine and then stop because they feel better, you should not stop segmenting using personas once your conversions increase. Your conversions are increasing most likely due to better targeting through segmentation. Stopping or neglecting your persona-based marketing plan will eventually bring you back to where you were before you started it.

]]>http://pwim.com/find-and-own-your-companys-white-space-through-personas-and-segmentation/feed/0Why Google Favors HTTPShttp://pwim.com/why-google-favors-https/
http://pwim.com/why-google-favors-https/#respondThu, 30 Jul 2015 18:35:10 +0000http://www.pwim.com/?p=3061HTTP, or hypertext transfer protocol, is what makes the internet run. Without it, links wouldn’t link, and there’d be no web to crawl. But as the internet grew in popularity, security—at least of some pages—became increasingly important. But now Google has gone so far as to not only recommend securing your entire website with the […]

]]>HTTP, or hypertext transfer protocol, is what makes the internet run. Without it, links wouldn’t link, and there’d be no web to crawl. But as the internet grew in popularity, security—at least of some pages—became increasingly important. But now Google has gone so far as to not only recommend securing your entire website with the secure version of HTTP—HTTPS—but will even favor HTTPS sites in search engine results. So what’s the difference, and how does it affect your site?

How HTTP and HTTPS Work

The hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) is a means of sharing the plain text and hyperlinks that make up everything we see online. HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, and is an encrypted way of transferring information securely across the internet via TLS, or Transport Layer Security Protocol. This protocol allows for three different layers including encryption, data integrity, and authentication. TLS encrypts data before it is transferred making it harder for hackers to decipher the information. Data integrity is then sustained by assuring that data cannot be changed or corrupted during transfer without being detected. TLS also allows for authentication of communication, meaning that it verifies that you are communicating with the intended website and not a site in the middle. So while security always made sense on pages that gathered sensitive and personally identifiable information, the sheer size of the internet today (and the increased malicious attacks against websites) make it easy to understand why Google and others would recommend HTTPS.

Google’s Opinion

Google’s own sites all run high level HTTPS encryption by default. At Google’s I/O developer conference in 2014 they called for HTTPS everywhere. Google then decided to test out using HTTPS as a ranking signal, meaning that a site may appear lower in search engine results if it is not HTTPS-encrypted. For now, Google says that this new ranking signal affects less than 1% of global queries, but they may decide (and probably will) to strengthen HTTPS as a ranking signal in the future.

How to transfer your site over to HTTPS

The first step in transferring your site over to HTTPS is to contact your webmaster and/or developer to help you transfer over your site to HTTPS. You will also need to work with your hosting company to install (and perhaps purchase) an SSL certificate. Your hosting plan must support private (not just shared) SSLs.

There are a lot of common pitfalls and you should be comfortable in coding and working in a server environment in order to complete this task. Always have a backup of your site before starting, as just a few miswritten lines of code could reduce website functionality or even take you offline. If you do not have a webmaster that can do this and do not want to attempt to do it yourself, there are many companies that can help you in your transition. If you want more information on HTTPS you can read Google’s article on securing your site with HTTPS or check out tutorials like these to get started converting your site to HTTPS on your own.

Two and a half years ago, Google recommended responsive web design (or at least creating a mobile-friendly version of your site). Considering the generally swift pace of the company’s progress and algorithm updates, it’s been a lengthy honeymoon—that’s now coming to a close.

Over the past week, Google began rolling out warnings to websites that have failed their “mobile usability” standards. While the warnings don’t come with a specified penalty or deadline for compliance, stronger action can be expected, because mobile-friendly design isn’t just about aesthetics, but usability, and even the bottom line.

Why Be Mobile-Friendly?

If this is completely new to you, you might want to check your site’s mobile-friendly status with Google’s test. Or maybe you’ve heard about it, but if you thought mobile-friendly design was just for blogs, sharing selfies, and finding directions to the nearest sandwich shop, you might not have the full picture of how people are using the mobile web.

Usability: a better website experience for your customer is good not just for them but also for you!

Not only are people searching for local business information and checking their social networks, but they are reading personal and company email, researching products, and even spending a lot of money—all from mobile devices.

“B2Bs Don’t Need Mobile-Friendly Websites”

The consumer relevance for mobile design is clear from the statistics, but “B2Bs don’t need mobile-friendly websites.” Really? Common objections from B2B decision-makers wanting to avoid a website redesign are:

We sell to companies, and companies don’t buy on mobile.

Nobody visits our website on their phone.

As long as they can find our phone number, they can just call us from their phone.

Companies Don’t Buy on Mobile

It’s true. Companies don’t buy on mobile. People do. It’s easy in the B2B space to forget that the real buyers and sellers are not businesses but people, and in human-to-human selling, even B2Bs need to engage with the methods their buyers use.

We Don’t Have Mobile Traffic

Companies that say they don’t have mobile traffic are either wrong, or they’re right but for the wrong reason.

Have you looked at your analytics to be sure you don’t have mobile traffic? You may indeed have mobile traffic, and you can learn a lot about your website from that data. Do they convert? How well do they convert compared to desktop users? If they do convert well, congratulations—chances are users either find a way to make your site work adequately (even if not optimally) on mobile, or you have a very compelling product. Now imagine if you actually improved the user experience?

But if you’re right, and you don’t have mobile traffic, it’s guaranteed it’s not for the same reason as 5 years ago. Even as mobile grew, people were still accustomed to full-screen surfing, especially for business. B2B product research happened at work, at a desk. But now, all bets are off… and the workplace is increasingly mobile. So if you don’t have mobile visitors, it may be:

Screenshot of Google mobile search results that now spotlight sites that are mobile-friendly

There is no denying that people are searching and researching on mobile, and it doesn’t matter the category. It’s no longer just personal interactions and consumer purchasing, but B2B industry has been invaded by mobile too. Your customers are on mobile, whether or not they’re coming to you.

They Can Just Call Us

Every time we try to force website visitors to use our sites just the way we think they should, we get fooled. Seldom do users take just one path, unless a website is extremely basic and navigation is strictly linear. It’s tough enough to predict how they’ll navigate on a full-size screen, but when confronted with the need to pinch and zoom, it’s even more challenging. So it certainly makes sense that you’d wish they’d just call.

But they wish you’d give them what they’re looking for—quickly and easily.

First, can they still find your microscopic phone number on their palm-sized screen?

Second, will they be motivated to make the effort to search for it, or will they go to your competitor?

Past Why, and Onward to How

Each time Google changes the rules, the “why” becomes less urgent than the “how,” but the “why” can be simply summed up to “because it’s how people use the internet.” Every industry needs to be where the customers are, and the most effective communication speaks the customer’s language rather than trying to force them to speak the company’s.

Of course, when an authority like Google adds “go mobile… or else” to the discussion, even hesitant B2B companies should make the transition.

If you’ve already received notification from Google, you have links to resources to help you move forward. If not, and want to get started, check out these articles from Google Developers.

]]>http://pwim.com/be-mobile-friendly-or-else/feed/0Change in Perspective for Fourth Quarter Business Goalshttp://pwim.com/change-perspective-key-fourth-quarter-goals/
http://pwim.com/change-perspective-key-fourth-quarter-goals/#respondThu, 09 Oct 2014 18:44:54 +0000http://www.pwim.com/?p=2649Spooky Creatures and Fourth Quarter Business Goals Halloween’s coming soon, so I recently asked my 7 year old neighbor Jason about his opinion on spooky creatures. I thought he’d mention witches, vampires, giant spiders, and balrogs. “Bats are the worst,” he whispered (as if some were lurking close by). “Bats drink blood. They have rabies. […]

Halloween’s coming soon, so I recently asked my 7 year old neighbor Jason about his opinion on spooky creatures.

I thought he’d mention witches, vampires, giant spiders, and balrogs.

“Bats are the worst,” he whispered (as if some were lurking close by). “Bats drink blood. They have rabies. If they’re hanging from a tree they could drop right down on my head and eat my ear.”

I pulled up the bat picture above on my phone.

“You mean like this?”

“Yes! If I see any bats hanging from a tree on Halloween, I might run home.” I tried to reason with him, and give him the facts about bats (generally harmless mammals), and rabies (less chance from a bat that a dog or cat), but he couldn’t see it. He was locked into his perspective on bats.

So, I shifted the picture around 180 degrees and something funny happened. It caused a change in perspective. (Even Jason could see this.) However over the picture to see the change.

Bats hanging from tree—now upside down. Original image used with permission from The Telegraph.

Now the bats looked different. They looked funny—like they were doing a dance, or about to engage in some clandestine activity.

“Oh my gosh, look I see all their genitals,” he snickered. The bats no longer looked creepy. Now he was ready to hear some facts on bats.

Perspective affects everything, with creepy bats and business growth.

The bats didn’t change, just Jason’s perspective did.

Perspective affects everything from bats to business growth.

“It’s only when you drop yesterday’s assumptions that you can glimpse tomorrow’s patterns and possibilities. To see deeper, unsee first,” stated Umair Haque, business consultant, contributor to Harvard Business Review, and author of “The New Capitalist Manifesto.”

Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. That’s what many business owners do, repeat the same thing, expecting different results. They often stay in a rut with fourth quarter business goals.

So, this blog is to challenge your perception and help you unsee some things. It’s to challenge you to leave behind the insanity of repeating the same thing and hoping for different results, especially with fourth quarter business goals approaching, and just beyond that a new year, with all of its potential for new success or repeated failures.

I want to challenge your perspective. Take a minute to watch this video clip on perspective and then I’ll have a few questions for you.

Now, I have just five questions for you to ponder about the power of a change in perspective and how that might affect your fourth quarter business goals:

Are you going to be thinking the same way about business growth in the next 3 months that you always have?

Are you measuring sales in the same way you did before?

What worked for you in 2014?

Do social media likes and shares really matter?

What can really help you gain leads and sales?

Don’t stay in a state of unseeing or keep up a pattern that’s never worked. Fourth quarter is the perfect time to see some new possibilities. Einstein would tell you it’s a smart move to try something new. Call us now to have a free brainstorm session. Contact us to see your business picture in a new way.

]]>PrairieWeb Internet Marketing is hosting a monthly B2B marketing meetup group. Learn and share useful information about business-to-business marketing issues and challenges in todays market. We discuss new topics every month that will bring needed ideas, tactics, and industry insights to help you succeed in B2B marketing.

]]>http://pwim.com/b2b-marketing-meetup/feed/0Internet Privacy and Data Collectionhttp://pwim.com/internet-privacy-data-collection/
http://pwim.com/internet-privacy-data-collection/#respondFri, 26 Sep 2014 18:19:48 +0000http://www.pwim.com/?p=2551The Double Edged Sword: Internet Privacy vs Enhanced Search Results Google has now crept into the living room. A patent filed by Google in 2011 was just granted by the U.S. Patent Office on September 16th. It proposes a way for search results to be improved by determining what television program is currently being displayed in […]

Google has now crept into the living room. A patent filed by Google in 2011 was just granted by the U.S. Patent Office on September 16th. It proposes a way for search results to be improved by determining what television program is currently being displayed in close proximity to the search device. Given the prevalence of simultaneous multi-screen viewing—81 percent of people use their smartphones while watching TV, and 66 percent use a laptop while viewing TV—this could either feel like a real help or a real intrusion.

Bill Slawski, founder of SEO by the Sea and an SEO patent expert commented, “As far as I can tell from this patent filing, Google wouldn’t actually be listening in like they suggested that they might do back in 2007 under a different patent.” However, Slawski admits that the patent really doesn’t tell how Google will determine whether there is a TV nearby to the searcher.”

The stated purpose of the new Google patent is to improve search results. Google proposes that the patent would yield search results that are more relevant to the user. In other words, if I type a query about toe wrestling warm ups, and they discover that I’m watching a special sporting event on toe wrestling competitions, it would influence the search results shown.

In spite of how Google says this will help someone conducting a search, will most people be happy for a refined search result, or concerned with potential privacy violation? Previous patent proposals by Google envisioned (1) using ambient audio from TV for gathering data, and (2) making use of a camera or video recorder to measure how many viewers are watching a broadcast. Many people expressed privacy concerns over audio and video recorded data being collected from a private home and transmitted elsewhere. As Google said before and is saying again, just because it holds a patent doesn’t mean that it will actually use the process.

Google’s Not the Only One Watching and Collecting

Facebook is up to it, too, particularly with their new Messenger app. A recent article by Global News cautions that the new app, once downloaded, allows the app to call phone numbers without your confirmation, record audio without your confirmation, take pictures and videos on the camera without your confirmation; read personal profile info stored on your device; and more. Even LinkedIn, the respected social media network for professionals, now faces a lawsuit over internet privacy violation for accessing users’ external email accounts. USA Today notes that “every online move leaves cyber footprints.”

“The possibilities [of what can be gathered] appear limited only by the imagination of the researchers,” summarizes Sharon Jayson in USA Today.

There are ways to muddy your online footprint, but are they effective against the advances being made by giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, LinkedIn. Amazon and Twitter?

But Wait… Data Collection Can Serve Customers

According to Small Business Advisor, data analytics make the process of satisfying customers easier. “With big data on hand, brand companies will be able to improve the experience of their customers.” Many large companies have built their success on using collected data to help build relationships with customers. T-Mobile paid attention to data collected, taking note of what annoyed customers about cell phone plans. They not only cut their churn rates by 50% in just one quarter, they began to offer better phone plans. Amazon has used collected data to improve customer satisfaction. CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, stated to Forbes: “We don’t focus on the optics of the next quarter; we focus on what is going to be good for customers.” Amazon has consistently rated highest in customer satisfaction indexes for online retailing, according to calculations conducted by University of Michigan. So data collection can serve customers and build business.

Also, the collected data can benefit the public. Information collected by a GPS tracking app (Strava) was sold to city planners to help them know where to put new bike lanes. Similar sales have helped city planners know where more public transportation routes were needed.

Ethical Considerations

It’s a double edged sword. Consumers wants fast, relevant search results. Businesses need data. Your data is gathered and it helps businesses target content to improve your experience on their site. But they may sell your data or gather it in ways that you are not fully aware of.

One thing is certain, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Amazon and more, continue to refine their ability to collect data and infer what searchers really want. But how does this effect internet privacy? If you’re a business owner, and wonder how this effects your business’ internet marketing goals—contact some experts to help you figure it out. Meanwhile… don’t watch TV in the bathroom.

]]>http://pwim.com/internet-privacy-data-collection/feed/0Social Media Trends: New Pathways Ahead?http://pwim.com/social-media-trends-new-directions-ahead/
http://pwim.com/social-media-trends-new-directions-ahead/#respondMon, 15 Sep 2014 15:47:42 +0000http://www.pwim.com/?p=2536Many companies have just gotten on the road to using the major social media platforms—the “big four”: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. Suddenly there are signs appearing about new social media trends just ahead. Time for a change of direction, or should you just keep steady on the path and not be diverted? It all […]

]]>Many companies have just gotten on the road to using the major social media platforms—the “big four”: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. Suddenly there are signs appearing about new social media trends just ahead. Time for a change of direction, or should you just keep steady on the path and not be diverted?

It all depends on your business, and on the platforms coming up on the highway.

Business owners and marketing professionals know that social media is a vital component of any marketing strategy. Jason DeMers (Forbes, August 5, 2014) points out that it’s a legitimate way to build awareness of your brand, engage with your audience, and grow your influence.

For small to medium sized businesses (SMBs), lesser known social media sites, with growing memberships, can be great means to reaching the right customers. There is less competition on these smaller sites and if the niche is right for your company it can allow you to focus your content to a strategic audience.

Sulia is a subject-based social network with content separated into channels: arts and entertainment, sports, business, tech and science, environmental, humanities, parenting, green living, self-help, and more. Users create or curate content. The microblogs can be up to 2,500 characters including the headline (115 allowed for that) and can include posted links, tweets, Facebook posts, images, videos, and audio clips. It’s similar in style to Tumblr, but Sulia pays contributors (a small amount). Kathryn Vercillio (a contributor) describes Sulia as combining the best of many social media sites. Over time “trust” ratings are earned. It’s important to note that Sulia is not a destination site. It’s a middleman, but because of that it can act as a hub point to connect you with people in a given “channel” or industry and bring them to your site.

Sharebloc: Where “Like-Minded Professionals” Share Business Content and Ideas

Sharebloc, launched in December 2013, is a site focused on connecting professionals. “It is both a place of inspiration for content you can curate, as well as a place to share your articles and build visibility” (Heinz Marketing). It’s been called the Reddit for professionals. Sharebloc topics, or “blocs,” include: sales and marketing, real estate, finance, legal, technology, accounting, HR, ecommerce, and more. Sharebloc does not want content that is self-promotional and “sales-y”.

The site’s largest competitor is, obviously, LinkedIn. Sharebloc’s co-founder and CEO, David Cheng, gave his opinion on LinkedIn’s move this year to open their publishing platform, saying it was likely tied to their poor engagement metrics. Cheng believes that this move may increase those metrics, but the content quality will suffer. Though Sharebloc is still very new and growing (and also struggling with engagement), they are moving aggressively into high quality, professional content. Cheng sometimes writes for LinkedIn as well as numerous other sites. He’s discovered that the more he blogs for other sites, the more it drives up the number of users for Sharebloc. Worked for me; I just joined.

Learni.st calls itself a “sourcer” of knowledge that gets pinned and shared on boards—akin to Pinterest for professionals. Users create their own boards related to their industry and share (or pin) business information with other business professionals. The platform allows for web, print, and video content on tens of thousands of topics. Learni.st has categories such as Art & Design, Business, Crafts, Education, Entertainment, Food & Drinks, Games, Health & Fitness, Home, How-To, Lifestyle, Products, Science, Society, Sports, Technology, Travel & Places (and under each of these are several sub-categories). It is a place for small and medium sized business owners to become thought leaders in their industries.

Thumb is a mobile app that allows users to upload a photo and ask fellow users to share their opinions on a certain topic. Users are currently clocking in on Thumb an average of 4 hours a month—second only to Facebook. Submit a picture along with a question and you can receive responses (thumbs up or thumbs down) as well as comments. Thumb Pro for businesses is available (with reports) and is considered valuable as a means to get instant feedback on anything from ad copy, new concepts, new designs, pricing, and quick polls.

So, does this mean a change in direction for your Social Media plans? Not really. But, choose one of the new social media trend that’s a good fit for your business, and jump in and give it a try. If you’re not sure how to tailor your content to a new platform, get some professional help with content development. If you don’t have a Social Media plan yet for your content, contact us for help.

]]>http://pwim.com/social-media-trends-new-directions-ahead/feed/0Content Writing Strategyhttp://pwim.com/content-writing-strategy/
http://pwim.com/content-writing-strategy/#respondThu, 04 Sep 2014 18:08:53 +0000http://www.pwim.com/?p=2499What is Your Content Writing Strategy? Writing Content to Match Your Sales Funnel Stages How many prospects are you losing every day? Don’t you wish each prospect visiting your web site would turn into a satisfied long term customer? It’s all a matter of proper channeling. You know what happens when you try to put oil in […]

Writing Content to Match Your Sales Funnel Stages

How many prospects are you losing every day? Don’t you wish each prospect visiting your web site would turn into a satisfied long term customer? It’s all a matter of proper channeling. You know what happens when you try to put oil in the car without a funnel. It’s messy–inefficient. You get spills. Oil is wasted. It’s not so different when we try to market without a sales funnel. Here is how to start gaining more prospects, leads and long term customers.

The strategy for capturing prospects and retaining customers involves content.

Content Writing Strategy: A Marketing System

Sales funnels are marketing systems designed to bring customers through the stages from prospect to lead, to customer, to long term customer. Jason Clegg of Convert with Content Writing Strategy states that sales funnel stages are similar to the old marketing system (from 1921) known as AIDA. AIDA lists different stages that occur when a consumer engages with an advertisement

Attention (or awareness)

Interest

Desire

Action

Clegg contends that “the most critical ingredient in any stage of the sales funnel is content,” and that each stage requires a different type of Content Writing Strategy . The right type of content will nurture and lead customers down to the next sales funnel stages.

Why is Content So Important?

SEO has changed, especially since the release of the Hummingbird algorithm. Content is now vital for SEO performance. According to Search Engine Land, businesses must work on a content plan for each stage of the funnel. Content needs to be conversational, in context, and relevant to the problems and needs of the particular consumers at their particular stage in the buying process. Analyze content as to whether it is intended for a visitor who is: seeking information, wanting entertainment, completing a transaction, needing data or investigating options.

What Content Writing Strategy is Needed at Each Stage? You’ll need develop content based on the needs of your target personas at each stage of the sales funnel:

Awareness Stage: Content Writing Strategy for this stage of the funnel is for prospects who have a problem and are looking for answers. Top funnel content should include: blogs, articles, info-graphics, videos, tips, tweets and content landing pages (optimized for search) that lead them to a product they’re looking for. Also, use content landing pages to create mini indexes of blog topics (organized by category) to draw them into deeper exploration of your website.

Interest Stage: Content Writing Strategy for this stage of the sales funnel is for prospects who have identified the solution but need help developing a plan and comparing your company with others. Mid funnel content, referred to by CopyBlogger as lead magnets, are: white papers or reports, webinars, E-books, guides, tutorials, presentations, case studies, testimonials, and e-mail campaigns and sign ups. Case studies and testimonials are important at this stage because research indicates that purchasers make their decisions based on emotions, and then follow up with data to support their decisions.

Sale Stage: Content Writing Strategy for this stage of the sales funnel is for people making a final decision about what company to work with. Purchase funnel content should include specs and data, product tutorials, confirmation pages that thank new purchasers, pages with clear content telling them next steps for completing purchase or talking to a rep. This content needs clear calls to action and easy to navigate purchase instructions.

Content Writing Strategy for the retention stage is really the end goal of the funnel. The value of keep retaining customers long term is significant. Marketing Metrics PDF shows that the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 – 70% higher than selling to a new prospect. Furthermore, studies show that the longer you retain a customer, there is a yearly increase in the chance of retaining them longer, in the number of referrals they’ll bring you, and amount they will spend with your company’s products and services.

]]>http://pwim.com/content-writing-strategy/feed/0Writing a Case Study that Attracts Prospectshttp://pwim.com/writing-a-case-study-thats-persuasive/
http://pwim.com/writing-a-case-study-thats-persuasive/#respondThu, 04 Sep 2014 16:05:47 +0000http://www.pwim.com/?p=2364How-Tos for Writing a Case Study “Our business kept floundering until…” “Once we used their product in our warehouse we noticed changes immediately.” “They were the first company to communicate clearly with us about goals.” “After nearly a decade of floundering returns we finally saw things turn around when we hired…” Writing a case study […]

“Our business kept floundering until…” “Once we used their product in our warehouse we noticed changes immediately.” “They were the first company to communicate clearly with us about goals.” “After nearly a decade of floundering returns we finally saw things turn around when we hired…”

Writing a case study of a customer who was helped by your firm is one your best investments of time and money. Customer case studies are one of the most persuasive types of content for businesses to develop. However, many businesses don’t regularly produce them. A 2013 study on B2B Content Marketing Trends showed that case studies are cited by business owners (88%) as one of the most effective content marketing strategies. Why don’t more companies write them?

Some business are unable to get clients to agree to being featured in a case study (or are hesitant to even ask).

Once permission is obtained, they’re not sure of the process for writing a case study.

Obtaining Permission for Writing a Case Study

Many businesses approach a customer and ask for a favor—permission to do a case study about how your company helped them. Instead, express the proposal in a way that positions the project as a win-win for both companies. Also, target which customers to ask (small to medium companies who focus on the B2B market).

Promise to spend some of the article highlighting the benefits of your customer’s product or service. Let your customer know how and where you will distribute the case study. Offer to also distribute it in publications that will reach their potential customers advises Jerry Fireman of the Content Marketing Institute. Stress that all drafts will be reviewed, edited and approved by them before publication. If the company is not agreeable to having their name used and being interviewed, they may be agreeable to an un-named story (less effective for both parties).

The Process of Writing a Case Study

Case studies are beneficial to companies. They offer credibility. They are one of the most frequently solicited content types by publications and blogs. Case studies or customer stories present information in a way that allows an emotional connection. Customer stories are more easily remembered than data alone. Jenifer Aiken of Stanford Graduate School of Business states that studies have shown that “story is up to 22 times more memorable than facts alone.” She also reports that in our world of information overload, stories cut through the noise and are attended to.

Selection of a Writer

Be sure the person writing the case study has an understanding of the industry and is a gifted writer. Often it’s best to hire a writer who is independent of your firm so that the customer can tell the story to an objective party. Writing a case study requires a nose for pertinent facts, and a feel for great story.

The Interview

Interview the people at the firm who can tell the story. It’s helpful to send potential questions ahead of time. Also, consider recording the interview by using a conference line that provides that option. This will enable you to have a transcript in case you need clarity on a key point. Be sure to obtain their permission in advance for recording the call.

Organizing

A case study must have 3 elements:

A business challenge faced

The solution found

The benefits

Organize the case study to show clear, easily understood events and facts for each of these elements. Include quotes. Also include high quality, high resolution photos.

Writing

Tell it like a story, not a newspaper report. Combine the story with elements that others can relate to emotionally (overcoming odds in the recession, fulfilling a lifelong dream, overcoming a major obstacle, the triumph of a project completed by the deadline—against all odds, the sense of pride in a family owned business).

Capture the customer’s concerns, issues, hopes, frustrations, and overall challenges that were part of the journey.

Craft it in the first person (“I”) or third person (“he,” “she,” or “they). If it’s in the third person, integrate enough quotes to make it more personable.

Identify the hero, but state the facts, without bragging.

Give a strong title that pulls together the story and grabs attention.

Polishing

Avoid sales jargon. Only include one or two references to your product or services advises Kissmetrics in a recent article on writing case studies. The piece should be tightly written and focus on the customer’s experience and business.

Promotion

The key to promotion of your case study is to identify who the intended audience is. Feature it on your own website (and your clients’) and all social media platforms you use (LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Twitter and more). Make it shareable, likable and pin-able. Seek out publications relevant for your industry and your client’s.

Writing a case study worth the investment of your time and effort. If you have a great case study to tell, but need help with telling it, talk to one of our in-house journalist.

]]>http://pwim.com/writing-a-case-study-thats-persuasive/feed/0AdWords Keywords Changing: Exact Match and Close Variant Changeshttp://pwim.com/adwords-google-ppc-changes/
http://pwim.com/adwords-google-ppc-changes/#respondThu, 28 Aug 2014 16:21:12 +0000http://www.pwim.com/?p=2486Plenty of words were being tossed about last week in response to Google’s upcoming AdWords keywords changes—nixing the ability to opt out of close variants. This change, to come into effect in late September, will do away with pure exact match. Read a few of the disgruntled comments: “Terrible idea by AdWords. Less control = […]

]]>Plenty of words were being tossed about last week in response to Google’s upcoming AdWords keywords changes—nixing the ability to opt out of close variants. This change, to come into effect in late September, will do away with pure exact match. Read a few of the disgruntled comments:

“Terrible idea by AdWords. Less control = worse results.”

“WTF Google. Just WTF.”

“It’s not that we always opt out of close variants. It’s that we have the choice to do so.”

So, exact match disappears next month. No more opt out options for close variants. What do the AdWords keywords changes really mean for advertisers?

It means you’ll likely be paying more money for those extra clicks

It means that most of those extra clicks won’t be converting

It means you need a new strategy for negative keywords

It means you’ll need to carefully target the keywords you use and their conversions

By late September, changes with AdWords keyword changes announced by Google will be affecting paid advertisement on that platform. It has already has caused many complaints and grievances (to no effect). Advertisers will no longer be able to opt out of close variants on search results. If an advertiser enjoyed having full control of campaigns previously, opting out of close variants and utilizing pure exact matches, things will change.

Why the Changes with AdWords Keywords?

Google’s Inside AdWords states that the basis for the change is that at least 7% of Google searches contain a misspelling and that longer queries have more chance of at least one typo. The reasoning is that searchers deserve to connect with businesses, services, and products—even if their spelling or typing is flawed.

What Will this Change Do?

Larry Kim of Wordstream believes that the change will not likely affect 97% of advertisers on Google AdWords that didn’t opt out of close variant key word match type option. But the remaining 3% will be impacted by the change. These are advertisers who wanted greater control and precision over what queries triggered their ads. This resulted in complex account management, but almost always resulted in improved ROI as well, reported Kim. Opting out of close variants allowed for greater precision in what search queries were triggered by the ads.

The benefits of close variant keywords are the reduction in account complexity and the wider reach to catch more long tail keyword searches.

What are close variants?

“Close variant” is a search feature that allows matching to occur on misspellings and close variations of a keyword. Currently, it can be turned off at the campaign level. While this allows for a larger net to be cast to bring in searching consumers, it also means that some searches that include close variants will not be so close, but in fact will be very far apart in terms of meaning.

According to Search Engine Land, “many products have a huge difference in intent between singular/plural, misspellings, and variants. Consider the differences in intent for someone searching for cardio programs, compared to cardiology, cardiologist. There is a difference between baby clothes,babycloths, and baby clothing.

“Once all advertisers are merged into this close variant world in late September, a ‘pure’ version of exact match on Google AdWords will be extinct. You simply will never be able to instruct Google to spend a certain amount on a specific term and on nothing else. Close variants will be applied to all match types.” After late September, the only way to control this will be to specifically add in negative keywords in an ad group or campaign—a time consuming process and prone to errors.

Keywordless Future?

Algorithms like Hummingbird show search results that don’t necessarily include the keywords entered by a searcher. So, it’s reasonable to believe that we are moving towards a “keywordless future” for search and that these “match type consolidations” will be seen again and again

The benefits of close variant keywords are supposed to be the reduced account complexity, and the wider reach to capture more long tail keyword searches. Another possible benefit, according to Greg Finn of Search Engine Land, is that with mobile and voice searches, it’s likely that companies will catch conversions they had not previously been catching and “uncover profitable PPC pockets.”

What to Do?

After the change to AdWords keywords, you will likely notice an increase in loosely matched clicks that do not convert to sales. In other words, you could be throwing more money at AdWords because of this. To be cost effective in the midst of the changes will take some effort:

Monitoring search terms and conversions closely

Avoiding broad matches in your campaigns

Adding negative keywords to prevent irrelevant search term matching

Carefully targeting keywords and phrases

It might be easier and more cost effective to hire an expert to help with your PPC Campaigns. Contact us now to get help before the change hits.